Currently, the best way to know what the air quality is on any given day is to check the Air Now website (www.airnow.gov), sign up for “EnviroFlash” e-mail alerts (www.enviroflash.info/), and to check your local media outlets, both print and broadcast, for announcements about “Air Action Days”—particularly on sultry summer days when they are most prevalent.

But a wave of next-generation air quality sensors is just over the horizon. These innovative technologies promise to make gathering and sharing air data faster and less expensive to gather, more relevant to local conditions (perhaps even down to the individual user), and easier to share. They have the potential to revolutionize air quality monitoring.

From more than one source I already know that the air quality where I live is bad. I asked a toll collector @ the Queens Midtown Tunnel if he any protection from vehicular exhaust. He said, “Yeah we have booths, but the door is open too.” So if the EPA says that Queens has unacceptable air quality levels, & the Community Air Survey shows parts of the city have very high levels, yes, I can find out more detail by sensors how particularly high the levels are, & try to avoid the air by staying indoors, where there is presumably less environmental risk. But more information is not more action, necessarily. I like Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC which lays out action and goals. Information without action simply frightens me. I want my air clean, and will work hard to do what it takes so that it will be.